Scenes in Honolulu -- No. 8

HONOLULU (S. I.), APRIL, 1866.

OFF

Mounted on my noble steed Hawaii (pronounced
Hahwy-ye--stress on second syllable), a beast that cost
thirteen dollars and is able to go his mile in three--with
a bit of margin to it--I departed last Saturday week
for--for any place that might turn up.

SATURDAY IN HONOLULU

Passing through the market place we saw that feature of
Honolulu under its most favorable auspices--that is, in the
full glory of Saturday afternoon, which is a festive day
with the natives. The native girls by twos and threes and
parties of a dozen, and sometimes in whole platoons and
companies, went cantering up and down the neighboring
streets astride of fleet but homely horses, and with their
gaudy riding habits streaming like banners behind them.
Such a troop of free and easy riders, in their natural
home, which is the saddle, makes a gay and graceful and
exhilarating spectacle. The riding habit I speak of is
simply a long, broad scarf, like a tavern tablecloth
brilliantly colored, wrapped around the loins once, then
apparently passed up between the limbs and each end thrown
backward over the same, and floating and flapping behind on
both sides beyond the horse's tail like a couple of fancy
flags; and then, with a girl that throws her chest forward
and sits up like a major general and goes sweeping by like
the wind. "Gay?" says Brown, with a fine irony; "oh, you
can't mean it!"

The girls put on all the finery they can scare up on
Saturday afternoon--fine black silk robes; flowing red ones
that nearly put your eyes out; others as white as snow;
still others that discount the rainbow; and they wear their
hair in nets, and trim their jaunty hats with fresh
flowers, and encircle their dusky throats with homemade
necklaces of the brilliant vermilion-tinted blossom of the
ohia; and they fill the markets and the adjacent streets
with their bright presences, and smell like thunder with
their villainous coconut oil.

Occasionally you see a heathen from the sunny isles away
down in the South Seas, with his face and neck tattooed
till he looks like the customary unfortunate from Reese
River who has been blown up in a mine. Some are tattooed a
dead blue color down to the upper lip--masked, as it
were--leaving the natural light yellow skin of Micronesia
unstained from thence down; some with broad marks drawn
down from hair to neck, on both sides of the face, and a
strip of the original yellow skin, two inches wide, down
the center--a gridiron with a spoke broken out; and some
with the entire face discolored with the popular
mortification tint, relieved only by one or two thin, wavy
threads of natural yellow running across the face from ear
to ear, and eyes twinkling out of this darkness, from under
shadowing hat brims, like stars in the dark of the
moon.

POI FOR SALE

Moving among the stirring crowds, you come to the poi
merchants, squatting in the shade on their hams, in true
native fashion, and surrounded by purchasers. (The Sandwich
Islanders always squat on their hams, and who knows but
they may be the old original "ham sandwiches"? The thought
is pregnant with interest.) The poi looks like common flour
paste, and is kept in large bowls formed of a species of
gourd, and capable of holding from one to three or four
gallons. Poi is the chief article of food among the
natives, and is prepared from the kalo or taro plant
(k and t are the same in the Kanaka alphabet,
and so are l and r). The taro root looks like
a thick, or, if you please, a corpulent sweet potato, in
shape, but is of a light purple color when boiled. When
boiled it answers as a passable substitute for bread. The
buck Kanakas bake it under ground, then mash it up well
with a heavy lava pestle, mix water with it until it
becomes a paste, set it aside and let it ferment, and then
it is poi--and a villainous mixture it is, almost tasteless
before it ferments and too sour for a luxury afterward. But
nothing in the world is more nutritious. When solely used,
however, it produces acrid humors, a fact which
sufficiently accounts for the blithe and humorous character
of the Kanakas. I think there must be as much of a knack in
handling poi as there is in eating with chopsticks. The
forefinger is thrust into the mess and stirred quickly
round several times and drawn as quickly out, thickly
coated, just as if it were poulticed; the head is thrown
back, the finger inserted in the mouth and the poultice
stripped off and swallowed--the eye closing gently,
meanwhile, in a languid sort of ecstasy. Many a different
finger goes into the same bowl and many a different kind of
dirt and shade and quality of flavor is added to the
virtues of its contents. One tall gentleman, with nothing
in the world on but a soiled and greasy shirt, thrust in
his finger and tested the poi, shook his head, scratched it
with the useful finger, made another test, prospected among
his hair, caught something and ate it; tested the poi
again, wiped the grimy perspiration from his brow with the
universal hand, tested again, blew his nose--"Let's move
on, Brown," said I, and we moved.

AWA FOR SALE--DITTO FISH

Around a small shanty was collected a crowd of natives
buying the awa root. It is said that but for the use of
this root the destruction of the people in former times by
venereal diseases would have been far greater than it was,
and by others it is said that this is merely a fancy. All
agree that poi will rejuvenate a man who is used up and his
vitality almost annihilated by hard drinking, and that in
some kinds of diseases it will restore health after all
medicines have failed; but all are not willing to allow to
the awa the virtues claimed for it. The natives manufacture
an intoxicating drink from it which is fearful in its
effects when persistently indulged in. It covers the body
with dry, white scales, inflames the eyes, and causes
premature decrepitude. Although the man before whose
establishment we stopped has to pay a government license of
eight hundred dollars a year for an exclusive right to sell
awa root, it is said that he makes a small fortune every
twelvemonth; while saloonkeepers, who pay a thousand
dollars a year for the privilege of retailing whiskey,
etc., only make a bare living.

We found the fish market crowded; for the native is very
fond of fish, and eats the article raw. Let us change the
subject.

OLD-TIME SATURDAYS

In old times here Saturday was a grand gala day indeed.
All the native population of the town forsook their labors,
and those of the surrounding country journeyed to the city.
Then the white folks had to stay indoors, for every street
was so packed with charging cavaliers and cavalieresses
that it was next to impossible to thread one's way through
the cavalcades without getting crippled. In the afternoon
the natives were wont to repair to the plain, outside the
town, and indulge in their ancient sports and pastimes and
bet away their week's earnings on horse races. One might
see two or three thousand, some say five thousand, of these
wild riders, skurrying over the plain in a mass in those
days. And it must have been a fine sight.

At night they feasted and the girls danced the
lascivious hula-hula--a dance that is said to exhibit the
very perfection of educated motion of limb and arm, hand,
head, and body, and the exactest uniformity of movement and
accuracy of "time." It was performed by a circle of girls
with no raiment on them to speak of, who went through with
an infinite variety of motions and figures without
prompting, and yet so true was their "time," and in such
perfect concert did they move that when they were placed in
a straight line, hands, arms, bodies, limbs, and heads
waved, swayed, gesticulated, bowed, stooped, whirled,
squirmed, twisted, and undulated as if they were part and
parcel of a single individual; and it was difficult to
believe they were not moved in a body by some exquisite
piece of mechanism.

Of late years, however, Saturday has lost most of its
quondam gala features. This weekly stampede of the natives
interfered too much with labor and the interests of the
white folks, and by sticking in a law here, and preaching a
sermon there, and by various other means, they gradually
broke it up. The demoralizing hula-hula was forbidden to be
performed, save at night, with closed doors, in presence of
few spectators, and only by permission duly procured from
the authorities and the payment of ten dollars for the
same. There are few girls nowadays able to dance this
ancient national dance in the highest perfection of the
art.

THE GOVERNMENT PRISON

Cantering across the bridge and down the firm, level,
gleaming white coral turnpike that leads toward the south,
or the east, or the west, or the north (the points of the
compass being all the same to me, inasmuch as, for good
reasons, I have not had an opportunity thus far of
discovering whereabouts the sun rises in this country--I
know where it sets, but I don't know how it gets there nor
which direction it comes from), we presently arrived at a
massive coral edifice which I took for a fortress at first,
but found out directly that it was the government prison. A
soldier at the great gate admitted us without further
authority than my countenance, and I suppose he thought he
was paying me a handsome compliment when he did so; and so
did I until I reflected that the place was a penitentiary.
However, as far as appearances went, it might have been the
King's palace, so neat and clean and white, and so full of
the fragrance of flowers was the establishment, and I was
satisfied.

We passed through a commodious office, whose walls were
ornamented with linked strands of polished handcuffs and
fetters, through a hall, and among the cells above and
below. The cells for the men were eight or ten feet high,
and roomy enough to accommodate the two prisoners and their
hammocks, usually put in each, and have space left for
several more. The floors were scrubbed clean, and were
guiltless of spot or stain of any kind, and the painfully
white walls were unmarred by a single mark or blemish.
Through ample gratings, one could see the blue sky and get
his hair blown off by the cool breeze. They call this a
prison--the pleasantest quarters in Honolulu.

There are four wards, and one hundred and thirty-two
prisoners can be housed in rare and roomy comfort within
them.

There were a number of native women in the female
department. Poor devils, they hung their heads under the
prying eyes of our party as if they were really ashamed of
being there.

In the condemned cell and squatting on the floor, all
swathed in blankets, as if it were cold weather, was a
brown-faced, gray-bearded old scalawag, who, in a
frolicsome mood, had massacred three women and a batch of
children--his own property, I believe--and reflects upon
that exploit with genuine satisfaction to this hour, and
will go to the gallows as tranquilly indifferent as a white
man would go to dinner.

OUT AT THE BACK DOOR

The prison yard--that sad enclosure which, in the
prisons of my native America, is a cheerless barren and
yieldeth no vegetation save the gallows tree, with its
sorrowful human fruit--is a very garden! The beds, bordered
by rows of inverted bottles (the usual style here), were
filled with all manner of dainty flowers and shrubs:
Chinese mulberry and orange trees stood here and there,
well stocked with fruit; a beautiful little pine
tree--rare, and imported from the far South Seas--occupied
the center, with sprays of gracefully arching green spears
springing outward like parasol tops, at marked and regular
intervals, up its slender stem, and diminishing in diameter
with mathematical strictness of graduation, till the
sprouting plume at the top stood over a perfect pyramid.
Vines clambered everywhere and hid from view and clothed
with beauty everything that might otherwise have been
suggestive of chains and captivity. There was nothing here
to remind one of the prison save a brace of dovecotes,
containing several pretty birds brought hither from
"strange, strange lands beyond the sea." These, sometimes,
may pine for liberty and their old free life among the
clouds or in the shade of the orange groves, or abroad on
the breezy ocean--but if they do, it is likely they take it
out in pining, as a general thing.

CAPTAIN TAIT, SCRIPTURAL
STUDENT

Against one wall of the prison house stands an airy
little building which does duty as a hospital. A harmless
old lunatic, named Captain Tait, has his quarters here. He
has a wife and children in the town, but he prefers the
prison hospital, and has demanded and enjoyed its
hospitality (slip of the pen--no joke intended) for years.
He visits his family at long intervals--being free to go
and come as he pleases--but he always drifts back to the
prison again after a few days. His is a religious mania,
and he professes to read sixty chapters of the Bible every
day, and write them down in a book. He was about down to
chapter thirty-five when I was introduced to him, I should
judge, as it was nearly two in the afternoon.

I said, "What book are you reading, Captain?"

"The precious of the precious--the book of books--the
Sacred Scriptures, Sir."

"Do you read a good deal in it?"

"Sixty chapters every day (with a perceptible show of
vanity, but a weary look in the eye withal)--sixty chapters
every day, and write them all down in a plain, legible
hand."

"It is a good deal. At that rate, you must ultimately
get through, and run short of material."

"Ah, but the Lord looks out for his own. I am in His
hands--He does with me as He wills. I often read some of
the same chapters over again, for the Lord tells me what to
read, and it is not for me to choose. Providence always
shows me the place."

"No hanging fire?--I mean, can you always depend on--on
this information coming to time every day, so to
speak?"

"Always--always, sir. I take the sacred volume in my
hand, in this manner, every morning, in a devout and
prayerful spirit, and immediately, and without any volition
on my part, my fingers insert themselves between the
leaves--so directed from above (with a sanctified glance
aloft)--and I know that the Lord desires me to open at that
place and begin. I never have to select the chapter
myself--the Lord always does it for me."

I heard Brown mutter, "The old man appears to have a
good thing, anyway--and his poi don't cost him anything,
either; Providence looks out for his regular sixty, the
prison looks out for his hash, and his family looks out for
itself. I've never seen any sounder maniac than him, and
I've been around considerable."

GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON

We were next introduced to General George Washington,
or, at least, to an aged, limping Negro man, who called
himself by that honored name. He was supposed to be seventy
years old, and he looked it. He was as crazy as a loon, and
sometimes, they say, he grows very violent. He was a Samson
in a small way; his arms were corded with muscle, and his
legs felt as hard as if they were made of wood. He was in a
peaceable mood at present, and strongly manacled. They have
a hard time with him occasionally, and some time or other
he will get in a lively way and eat up the garrison of that
prison, no doubt. The native soldiers who guard the place
are afraid of him, and he knows it.

His history is a sealed book--or at least all that part
of it which transpired previously to the entry of his name
as a pensioner upon the Hawaiian Government fifteen years
ago. He was found carrying on at a high rate at one of the
other islands, and it is supposed he was put ashore there
from a vessel called the Olive Branch. He has evidently
been an old sailor, and it is thought he was one of a party
of Negroes who fitted out a ship and sailed from a New
England port some twenty years ago. He is fond of talking
in his dreamy, incoherent way, about the Blue Ridge in
Virginia, and seems familiar with Richmond and Lynchburg. I
do not think he is the old original General W.

ALOFT

Upstairs in the prison are the handsome apartments used
by the officers of the establishment; also a museum of
quaint and curious weapons of offense and defense, of all
nations and all ages of the world. The prison is to a great
extent a self-supporting institution, through the labor of
the convicts farmed out to load and unload ships and work
on the highways, and I am not sure but that it supports
itself and pays a surplus into the public treasury besides,
but I have no note of this, and I seldom place implicit
confidence in my memory in matters where figures and
finance are concerned and have not been thought of for a
fortnight. This government prison is in the hands of W. C.
Parke, Marshal of the Kingdom, and he has small need to be
ashamed of his management of it. Without wishing to betray
too much knowledge of such matters, I should say that this
is the model prison of the western half of the world, at
any rate.